Job Chapter 7 to 8 : English Standard Version
7:1 “Has not man a hard service on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired hand? 2Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like a hired hand who looks for his wages, 3so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me. 4When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ But the night is long, and I am full of tossing till the dawn. 5My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh. 6My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle and come to their end without hope.
7“Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good. 8The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more; while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone. 9As the cloud fades and vanishes, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up; 10he returns no more to his house, nor does his place know him anymore.
11“Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 12Am I the sea, or a sea monster, that you set a guard over me? 13When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’ 14then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions, 15so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones. 16I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath. 17What is man, that you make so much of him, and that you set your heart on him, 18visit him every morning and test him every moment? 19How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit? 20If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind? Why have you made me your mark? Why have I become a burden to you? 21Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I shall lie in the earth; you will seek me, but I shall not be.”
8 Bildad Speaks: Job Should Repent
8:1 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:
2“How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind? 3Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right? 4If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their transgression. 5If you will seek God and plead with the Almighty for mercy, 6if you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore your rightful habitation. 7And though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great.
8“For inquire, please, of bygone ages, and consider what the fathers have searched out. 9For we are but of yesterday and know nothing, for our days on earth are a shadow. 10Will they not teach you and tell you and utter words out of their understanding?
11“Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh? Can reeds flourish where there is no water? 12While yet in flower and not cut down, they wither before any other plant. 13Such are the paths of all who forget God; the hope of the godless shall perish. 14His confidence is severed, and his trust is a spider’s web.[1] 15He leans against his house, but it does not stand; he lays hold of it, but it does not endure. 16He is a lush plant before the sun, and his shoots spread over his garden. 17His roots entwine the stone heap; he looks upon a house of stones. 18If he is destroyed from his place, then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have never seen you.’ 19Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the soil others will spring.
20“Behold, God will not reject a blameless man, nor take the hand of evildoers. 21He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouting. 22Those who hate you will be clothed with shame, and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”
[1] Hebrew house